Riverside City Chronicles | Book 1 | Riverside City [Capes & Cowls]

by VanDerHeyden, Paul C.

  "Not so fast little hero, the boss wanted to see what happens when a powerful Super gets injected with a full dose. I wasn't going to let him do that to me... I could die you know. That much power is too much for mortal men," Krakatoa rasps, his left hand held toward Jin's feet and his right hand glowing red and pointed at Jin's head. "Don't try anything, I'm more powerful this close to a volcano than anyone but Primus, but he’s not going to show up for this little prison break experiment."

  Jolly watches events from his treetop perch.

  Should I help? They haven't actually hurt him yet, I'll give him a few more minutes to pull it out himself.

  That doesn't stop him from holding up a metal wand looking thing and focusing on it for a few seconds, it starts crackling with electricity.

  "Let me go!" Jin surges against his bonds, doing everything he can to avoid the incoming injector. It's no use, he remembers too late that he can slip through the stone. As he starts to do so the injector strikes him in the heart.

  "That hurt less than I thought…" Jin's voice is cut off as he starts screaming, red light surging out of him, everyone within 30 feet of him is blasted off of their feet, the prisoners are all knocked out as they get bounced off of the ground on their way away from Jin.

  Shit, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop him if he goes berserk again… let's see, a good enough zap should knock him back to his senses… I hope. Jolly holds his metal wand tightly, the end aimed toward Jin.

  In Jin’s mind dominating all other thought is the character 火, or Huǒ, which translates to Fire.

  “Fire!” Jin shouts, his body radiating a powerful red aura. Krakatoa tries to interfere, but even his heat resistance doesn’t seem to be working on this force field.

  Unlike the last time a new power manifested, this time Jin only glows for about a minute before lowering to the ground. He stumbles a bit before catching himself.

  I wonder what I can do now, I’ll have to test it out later. For now, I’ll take down these idiots.

  Theo moves toward Titan in a flash, moving at least 10 times faster than before taking on his new powers.

  Super speed, neat. I wonder...

  “Hey, Titan. I wonder if your jaw is as fragile as your hand? Let's test that theory!" Theo’s speed enhanced punch hurtles toward Titan, his fists glowing a gentle red as his punch connects with Titan’s jaw.

  Titan’s neck snaps back as Jin strikes him and sends him sailing into a palm tree 50 feet away. An audible cracking sound comes from the palm tree Titan impacts, he falls to the ground holding his jaw and the back of his head.

  “You’re not done emerging?” Krakatoa’s raspy voice comes from behind Jin. “If so, I cannot let you finish doing so. If you were to finish, I get a feeling that most Supers would not be able to touch you, let alone hurt you. I’m sorry son, this has to be done now.”

  Krakatoa grabs Jin’s shoulders, spins him around with surprising strength, and braces his chest toward the volcano.

  “Goodbye, little Cape, I’ll not miss you.” Krakatoa’s suit flaps open, revealing a green and red gem embedded in his chest.

  From that gem, a beam of green and red energy spears into a surprised Jin, carrying him like a speeding bullet toward the base of the volcano. Jin crashes through the jungle, propelled by the beam of energy which holds him with his arms back, screaming in pain.

  When he crashes into the volcano, he crunches through the stone until finally, the energy in the beam starts to wane. The last bit of energy pushes him into a small void above the pool of magma under Haleakalā, the East Maui volcano. He gasps as the beam releases him before looking down and gasping, the magma is mere feet below him.

  Jin closes his eyes and waits for impact, followed by a horrible few seconds of burning to death.

  I hope Kat finds someone good, I’d be sad if she never found someone to be with. I hope Dante finds his purpose and becomes the Cape I know he can be. Sorry Mom, I’m not going to make it for dinner.

  With a splash of lava, Jin starts sinking into the magma.

  Jin opens his mouth, expecting to scream in pain, but when he reaches his hands into the magma, there is no pain.

  “Awesome! I’m not dead!” Jin roars.

  I’m magma proof! I’m going to get that bastard Krakatoa good for this, he tried to kill me! How am I going to get back to him? It’d take too long to swim in this stuff. Wait a minute, this feels just like when Richter was teaching me to Earth Glide, I wonder if I can use that here?

  Jin channels his energy into his feet and hands, though this time instead of just yellow, earth attributed energy, there is some red mixed in with it. Jin focuses on moving toward the location of his previous encounter with Krakatoa and Titan and he feels his body heat up. A golden flame coats Jin’s body as he starts to hurtle toward the clearing head first with his fists out, at a speed much greater than his usual Earth Gliding. He uses the tunnel created by his trip into the magma chamber.

  “If I don’t close this tunnel, the island may be in danger, I should close it up as I go.” Jin holds his arms out to the sides until he just barely touches the sides with his finger tips. It slows him down slightly, but collapses the tunnel behind him.

  “That should do it.” Jin grins as he shoots out of the, now collapsed, tunnel. To his surprise, he doesn’t start gliding along the ground, instead, the golden flames shift to a more pure red and start shooting out of his feet and a small bit out of his chest.

  “I’m flying? Awesome!” Jin pumps his left fist, which causes him to veer drastically to the left side, instinctively he jerks his right fist in just a bit, correcting his flight path. Jin shakes his head, that was almost really bad, he was heading right toward a tree, and while he probably would have been fine, the tree itself wasn’t going to be okay for sure.

  This isn’t quite as easy as my earth powers were to learn, though I guess I had Richter to explain everything for that, so I can’t complain too much.

  A few seconds later, Jin notices the clearing coming up beneath him, all of the escaped Supers are where he left them, nine of them splayed out on the ground. The two who orchestrated the breakout are still trying to convince the remaining six standing escaped Supers to take them up on their offer of power-enhancing “juice”. The six are now looking more enthusiastic about getting enhanced powers, having just seen how powerful Krakatoa is.

  Titan is gesticulating wildly at the group of escapees. “See, my hand is better already, all because of the powers I got from the last batch of Amp. This stuff here is even stronger than the stuff she gave me, so you might even get better powers than I did. I’m a bit jealous she’s offering this to you and not me, if I’m being honest.” Three of the six supers, two women and one man, line up in front of Titan, their arms extended for Titan to inject.

  Either he’s a good actor, or he really is a bit jealous of them. Huh, might be something to exploit at a later date. I wish Kat was here, she would be able to tell if he was telling the truth.

  Jin pulls up on both of his fists at once, hoping to swing up and stop, instead of continuing forward. He swings up, but instead of stopping there his speed increases.

  Oh shit! How do I stop!?

  “JEN, call Brigid, priority 1!” Jin yells into the oncoming wind.

  “Calling Brigid, priority 1.”

  A loud booming sound comes from behind Jin.

  Jin’s communicator rings once before Brigid picks up.

  “Theo, what’s wrong?” Brigid asks in a panic.

  “I just started flying very fast and I don’t know how to stop!” Jin answers in a panic.

  “What!? Okay, can you turn?”

  Jin explains how he has changed direction so far quickly.

  “Okay, it sounds like your flight is based on fire like mine and it sounds like it’s thrust based. JEN, how high is Jin right now?” Brigid asks calmly.

  “Jin is currently twelve miles above sea level.” JEN’s calm tone enters both Jin and Brigid’s ears.


  “I’m how high?! How fast am I going?” Jin sounds both scared and excited.

  “Roughly 1,000 miles per hour and that doesn’t seem to be your top speed, judging from the fact that you just learned how to fly. Now focus, imagine the energy coming from your feet collecting in your chest instead.” Brigid’s cool tone knocks Jin out of his stupor.

  Jin does just as Brigid recommends, he imagines his thrust being held in his chest. Almost immediately, he notices that he’s slowing down, albeit slowly.

  “I think it worked! You’re amazing!”

  Brigid replies, pride evident in her voice, “I’m not amazing, I’ve just been flying in a way very similar to that longer than you’ve been alive. You’re pretty amazing yourself, super strength and durability, plus supersonic flight will make you one of the most in-demand Capes in the world, but we can talk about that later. Let’s focus on getting you to the ground.”

  Jin feels something akin to pressure coming from behind his head, he turns around in the air with some difficulty and notices a black spec rapidly approaching him.

  “What’s that JEN?” Jin asks while pointing at the spec.

  “There is nothing within sensor range.”

  “I get a feeling that I’m in danger Brigid, something is approaching me at speed up here.”

  “Really? That’s odd, you’re so high up that I’m surprised anyone could find you, let alone get to you in time. Try focusing on the spec, Supers with super speed or supersonic flight usually end up with enhanced vision as well. It should be automatic if you have that ability.”

  Jin stares intently at the much larger spec, his vision tunnels in and lets him see what is approaching him. It’s a black metal form shaped like a bird.

  “It’s a black metal bird?” Jin asks with doubt in his voice.

  Brigid gasps, “That’s Ebony! Flip over and dive toward the ground, pushing as much force as you can into your feet. Count to 10 and then pull your power into your chest again,” Brigid yells into her communicator.

  She starts running toward the Operations Center at FSA HQ, ignoring the elevator in favor of bursting through the wall and shooting up the elevator shaft with flames shooting from her hands and feet.

  “Okay, I’ll try,” Jin replies, he wills the energy from his chest into his hands and uses them to flip himself upside down, then pushes 90% of the energy into his feet, the remaining 10% he leaves in his hands for steering.

  I guess my hands can be used to steer if I’m not flying fists first, good to know.

  “There is no try with this, if you don’t get down by Jolly, Ebony will kill you.” The sounds of rubble crashing down the elevator shaft surround Brigid as she rips open the elevator doors to the Operations Center.

  “Patch Jolly in, Override 8E, Brigid,” she yells as she enters the Operations Center.

  Jolly’s voice floats in over the com, “I hope he’s okay. I don’t want to deal with…Brigid, is that your yelling I hear? Did you use an override to call me?”

  “Ebony is hunting Jin, who’s currently 11 or so miles above your head if my math is good.” Brigid’s voice is curt, unlike when she was speaking with Jin a moment ago. “JEN, enable flight HUD for Jin whenever he’s flying, please.”

  “Done,” JEN replies.

  A heads up display, or HUD, appears in front of Jin’s vision, displaying angle of flight, speed, elevation, and other relevant information for him to easily view.

  “Well this will be useful. Brigid, I’m flying straight down at 900 MPH right now.” A sonic boom is audible as he speeds toward the ground.

  “Ebony is hunting Jin? They’re supposed to be in Mexico helping the dictator there clear up the cartels again, where did they come from?” Jolly asks in a very un-jolly tone.

  I didn’t think they’d figure his identity out this quickly, I’ll have to take them into custody quickly so they don't figure out any more than they already have.

  Jolly hops out of the tree, lands in a three-point stance, and blasts the group of Cowls with a ball of lightning. Krakatoa and Titan stay standing for a second before passing out from the pain while the rest of them are knocked into the air and fall down unconscious. Titan lands on his right arm and hand with a sickening crunch.

  No time for small fries right now.

  From under his duster, he pulls out a large metal device that looks like a futuristic rifle or cannon, but there’s no stock or trigger, just a large hole opposite the barrel. Jolly slips his right arm into the hole and the barrel starts to glow a deep emerald green.

  “All right, Jin, when I say ‘Move’ I need you to head toward the volcano, Ebony can’t see through the smoke coming from up there.” Jolly leans back and his duster flares, two metal legs with shock absorbers unfurl from within. Jolly leans back, rests his weight on the legs, and aims the cannon into the air.

  A green HUD appears in front of Jolly’s face. Using that, he easily identifies Jin’s falling form. However, he also spots Ebony’s jet black form gaining on Jin quickly.

  Ebony streaks in, wings back and hands formed into a nose cone, trying to eke out every last bit of speed to catch Jin. They are a jet black shadow sneaking up on Jolly's charge.

  "Move!" Jolly yells, sweat drips down his face as he discharges the cannon. A brilliant emerald energy beam shoots out, a spear toward the heavens streaking straight at Jin and behind him, Ebony.

  If Jin doesn't move, this could kill him…please, MOVE!

  When Jin hears Jolly his first thought is to look around for Ebony, but his instincts save him from Jolly's attack. His hands flare and push him into a 90-degree turn, his whole body screams in protest, the pain from the g-forces is excruciating. It's like his whole body is being ripped into a pile of scraps and then smashed into something the size of a golf ball. He streaks off toward the volcano as planned, screaming the whole way.

  Ebony is not so lucky. They try to divert, but by the time their hands pull out of the nose cone shape to try and turn, it's too late. The brilliant emerald beam strikes Ebony straight in the chest, knocking them off course and back up into the air. Their armor screeches as the energy beam continues to walk up the body of Ebony.

  Ebony screams in an odd robotic voice, "Yinlonggg! I'm going to kill you today. I'll feast on the blood of another of that bastard’s descendants again tonight, if not the young one, then you!" They streak down toward Jolly, Jin completely forgotten.

  ___

  Meanwhile, Jin makes it to the volcano and is staying where he was told, within the smoke coming from the volcano. He adjusts his vision until he can see the fight.

  I didn't even know I could do that, I wonder what else I can do with my eyes… FOCUS THEO, there’s a fight going on.

  "Wow, Ebony must really hate Jolly, to give up on me to get him. They probably could have caught me if they tried," Jin posits before he notices the form of Titan moving behind Jolly. "JEN, what is the status of Titan right now?"

  "Titan: status, severely damaged, treatment recommended requires a Level 2 trauma center. He is, however, moving."

  "That's what I thought, I know Jolly told me to stay put, but I need to back him up, just in case," Jin nods to himself before setting off down from the edge of the volcano at a modest, but still Super, speed. "I'm his backup. I wonder how fast I can run? No better way to find out right?" He starts running full tilt down the volcano toward Jolly, rocks, trees, and animals streak past him as he runs.

  "Actually, a speedster treadmill is the best method of testing speed," JEN's voice rises over the wind noise as it comes over comms.

  "No one asked you JEN," Theo grins and checks his HUD, 500 MPH.

  That’s ten times faster than a jaguar. What kind of odd fact was that to remember right now? I’m going to have to work on this internal monologue thing.

  Time seems to slow down as he weaves through the trees toward Jolly's location, his golden form darting along the jungle floor.

  ___

  Jolly’s next shot of emerald energy sends
Ebony spiraling away from their path toward him for a moment before their wings adjust and they turn into a large black spike, feathers conforming into a hardened metal shell. A single large thruster flares from the back of the spike, Ebony’s form accelerates toward Jolly at a frightening speed.

  Jolly spins off of his sniping setup, the legs fold up into his duster as he stands up. He holds his left hand up to the side of his weapon, the metal starts to shift under his hand. After a moment the weapon is a cross between a lance and its original cannon form. The head of the lance has a hole that reveals the same brilliant emerald energy from the cannon. Jolly nods his head approvingly.

  Turned out better than usual, then again, I haven’t done this since that day… FOCUS Jolly, Ebony is your nemesis. They will kill you if you’re distracted.

  Holding his newly configured lance up, Jolly prepares for Ebony’s landing. His duster covers itself in a silver coating like his and Jin’s ancestral armor, or more accurately, their scales. It has the same hexagonal pattern as his normal suit, a striking change from its regular dark brown leather. Ebony speeds down toward Jolly, not intimidated by his newfound appearance.

  Both of them yell as their bodies crash into each other with a deafening crunch.

  “YINLONG!!!” comes the distorted scream of Ebony.

  “EBONY!!!” the strangely ancient voice of Jolly yells.

  Ebony swerves just a little at the last second to avoid impaling themself on Jolly’s newly transformed lance, instead Ebony flares their wings out and catches him in the shoulder with a quick wing slap at speed. They alight and start attacking Jolly with the fervor of someone possessed.

  Ebony is a blur of black metal wings along with armored feet and fists. They operate their wings like they’re another set of limbs, which catches Jolly off guard, they score another blow to the same shoulder, knocking him back off balance.

  Ebony has been training, last time those wings got in the way once they were on the ground. Now they’re the most dangerous part of their combat style, guess it’s time to drop the act.